The 49ers are struggling at 5-6. They have a tough game in Buffalo on Sunday night. A loss would further complicate their path to the postseason.
So how is the current vibe in the locker room?
“The vibe in our locker room is exactly how you would think it’d be,” coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters on Wednesday. “We’re upset with where we’re at in our record, but we’ve got a tight group and we play together. I think if you live in the world online, whether you’re dealing with our profession or your kids dealing with social issues in school, you’re not going to be happy if you’re dealing in the world online. And I’ve definitely coached long enough that I don’t deal in that world. Only online I look at is usually movie stuff and rap battles and funny things that animals do. Good or bad.
“When you listen to good stuff, like that’ll mess you up more than anything. And then when you listen to bad stuff it’ll crush you. That’s not why any of us do this. You’ve got to work with younger guys on that. I think it’s harder just because of the world that they’ve been brought up in. But don’t make someone else’s reality your reality. You’ve got to focus on what your job is and never get away from that.”
The reality is that fans and media who have been spoiled by plenty of playoff appearances and Super Bowl berths are getting restless. Some have even made the ridiculous suggestion that Shanahan should be on the hot seat. Shanahan isn’t trying to assess himself during a down year.
“That’s up to you guys to grade me,” Shanahan said. “I work as hard as I can to get a win that week and we haven’t won as much as I believe we should have. We’ve lost three games that I feel we were capable of winning and should have won. Those are the ones that are the toughest. In terms of grading myself, I’m not going to grade myself. I’m going to work as hard as I can. I’m the same guy I am right now that I’ve always been. We’ve got to overcome some things that we’re in right now. I believe we can overcome them, but we put ourselves in a tough bind and that’s why we’ve got to be extremely good and successful here going forward to be able to overcome that stuff.”
If they can get and stay healthy, they absolutely can do it. Every team has to deal with injuries, but the 49ers have been stung more than most. It likely has something to do with the physical stress of playing so many extra postseason games from 2021 through 2023.
There’s a mental toll as well. It’s hard to put so much into a season and be denied the ultimate goal.
That said, there’s a team or two every year that gets hot after Thanksgiving and carries that into the playoffs. The 49ers can be one of those teams this year.
And that effort would be helped tremendously if they can find a way to upset the Bills on Sunday night. After that, most of the games are winnable — Bears, Rams, at Dolphins, Lions, at Cardinals. Even with a loss on Sunday, 9-8 is doable. Whether that will do enough to pick off the Commanders for the No. 7 seed remains to be seen.
The rest of the playoff teams in the NFC should hope that doesn’t happen.